


paradoxical

by Anonymous



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Nonary Game (Zero Escape), Probably ooc, Sad Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Paradoxes, being azuma is suffering, but in the same way that akane and june are the same, hajime and august are the same person, hajime burns to death offscreen, this is a zero escape 999 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27116432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “No. You have not lost. I… have lost…”As Hajime’s life comes to an end, so does the Nonary Game.
Kudos: 4
Collections: Anonymous





	paradoxical

**Author's Note:**

> okay I know this is an AU and all but don’t think too hard about which character would fit where because I have no idea. I don’t even think anyone else would fit. but what do I know, I’m just here to suffer.

Azuma wakes from nightmares where Hajime burns to death.

It’s always the same nightmare. They were children caught in the cruelties of fate, and Azuma finds himself continuously tied to it, forever reliving that awful, searing moment when he heard his brother’s screams on the other side of the incinerator door.

The room smelled awful. He touched his brother’s ashes with little regard for how things should be, and the others watched in horror as he cried and screamed like he can’t remember doing since. They were just watching, watching as Azuma’s brother died, locked inside the incinerator, unable to leave because of a sick, twisted person that Azuma has never been able to understand.

Maybe Azuma is just tired. He always feels tired.

Sometimes, Hajime holds him when he cries from the nightmares. More often, they sit in silence, doing more preparation for the inevitable Nonary Game they have to put on to save Hajime’s life.

If Hajime is a paradox, if Azuma has to fix things just right so that Hajime will live, he will. Just so he’s not alone ever again. Even if there’s a time limit, even if Hajime will one day disappear like smoke if Azuma doesn’t save him, Azuma will find it in himself to walk headfirst into a death game.

Hajime’s smile is warm. He’s smart, everyone said so. He can do this with Azuma’s help, he tells Azuma, because he saw the future when he died all those years ago.

There are a lot of timelines, Azuma thinks, where both of them end up dead. That’s how he understands it, even if he can’t see the possibilities like August can. There’s a lot of death in the game, a murder waiting to happen, knives and guns and axes littered around the cliffside building where the game will take place.

He doesn’t think their mutual deaths would be as bad as Hajime dying but Azuma staying here. Alive. Alone.

Hajime frowns, when he says that, the _only_ time he says it. Because Hajime doesn’t want him to die. Just like he doesn’t want the other participants to die, and especially doesn’t want Hisoka to die, because he saw it, long ago, years stretching between his past and future.

He saw Hisoka die. He saw Hisoka live. He saw both of them die, from Hisoka’s eyes.

* * *

Hisoka is, in Azuma’s eyes, a puzzle. He listens to Azuma carefully when Azuma talks about his past, but he falls asleep half the time he’s doing the puzzles. When he tries, he’s good at them, and Azuma assumes he’s trying more often than not because of the threat of death—he’s supposed to be good at surviving. Azuma didn’t believe it before now.

He spends a lot of time with August, making sure August is okay. Azuma asks, innocently, if Hisoka would die for August. Hisoka answers _probably,_ in a sleepy, lukewarm manner. They’re remarkably similar, in some ways. Hisoka tries to help August. Azuma tries to help Hajime.

Hajime and August aren’t quite the same. August is a bit sharper, a little less laidback, a lot less open to murder as part of their gambit to keep him alive. Azuma isn’t even sure if August retains Hajime’s memories, or if it’s a ghost of his younger self that’s forced its way into bracelet number 8. Azuma is haunted by nightmares, but it’s even more chilling to see his brother act like an _almost_ different person.

Bracelet number 8 is a curse, but when Hisoka calls him _August,_ the eighth month, he smiles and accepts it fully in a way Azuma can’t.

Maybe he can accept it because he doesn’t understand the stakes. Azuma knows that Hisoka will die a hundred deaths in different timelines. He’ll make the wrong choices in some, and no matter how skilled he is, he’s still just a man.

A stronger man than Azuma, though.

* * *

Someone dies in the incinerator.

It doesn’t matter who, but Hisoka’s face is streaked with tears. Azuma doesn’t move, mouth pressed into a microphone connected to a voice changer. Azuma is part of the veins of this game, a moving piece who’s lost its purpose. Hisoka found out what he needed to so that another version will succeed, but he failed at saving _this_ Hajime.

Azuma hates luck. He hates people leaving him. He hates watching August wipe away Hisoka’s tears, August falling to the floor as Hisoka catches him in his feverish, dying state.

There’s a rock in Azuma’s stomach, and if they actually were on a ship in the middle of the ocean he thinks he’d sink all the way down, never to see the light again. He wonders if the last light Hajime will give off will be that of flames and fire, or if it’ll be a car crash’s metal intensity, or the blood spilling from a gunshot wound from an unknown enemy. Or maybe Hajime will be a secret agent facing a former friend, gun to his head for helping Hisoka run.

Azuma isn’t sure where the visions are coming from. He just _knows._

He knows that in another universe Hajime left him with a smile and a promise to be back, and then never did return. In this one, Azuma was a child holding his brother’s ashes, turned into an adult watching him burn away from a fever.

Hisoka’s fingers clutch August’s coat, begging him not to die. It echoes in Azuma’s head.

When August’s body disappears, Azuma fulfils his final wish for this timeline and pours drugged smoke into the room. Hisoka collapses easily, slamming against the floor. Azuma speaks into the microphone. He’s not sure if Hisoka can hear him or if he’s even awake, but despite the short time they’ve known each other, he needs Hisoka to understand.

“Game over,” Azuma recites, like a script for a play. “This game has ended.”

Hisoka’s head lifts, his one visible eye strikingly clear as Azuma enters the room, draped in robes and a gas mask. “Where’s… August…?”

“He’s not here anymore,” Azuma says. “But it was inevitable. The path was set only hours ago, and it was, unfortunately, the wrong path. The loser has been decided for a long time.”

“I… won’t lose… I’ll save him...” Hisoka’s struggling against unconsciousness despite his love for sleep. Maybe in another life, Azuma would find it admirable instead of sad. As it is, Azuma smiles bitterly under the gas mask despite the fact that Hisoka can’t see it, kneeling beside the man and hoping that this might be enough to explain.

“No. You have not lost. I… have lost…”

Hajime is gone, and so is August. He died in the incinerator years ago, and now Hisoka sleeps, the one who once took care of him gone forever. Azuma tried his best, but he still failed.

And now he’s alone.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so the explanation I have for this fic’s existence is that I found [this twitter bot](https://twitter.com/hajimesurvived) which has various jokes about Hajime being alive, and a lot of them have to do with the theories that Hajime is August or July. then I saw one joking that he’s ACTUALLY June, I assume it’s a joke about that being the other summer month? but my ZE-loving brain’s first thought was _JUNE 999!_ and then my mind ended up going “haha Hajime survived because he was caught in a time paradox after burning to death like Akane”
> 
> oh. that makes Azuma take the role of Santa, who’s trying to keep his sibling alive. haha. I can make angst out of that.
> 
> anyway. I don’t actually have a twitter, but I have fun observing the theories from the outside, even if I don’t see a lot of stuff related to it due to not being actively on the site.


End file.
